1. Field of the Invention
The prevent invention relates to an apparatus for folding a cloth, for example, the sleeve cloth for a short-sleeved T-shirt in half while conveying continuously.
2. Description of the Prior Art
An apparatus for folding the sleeve cloth for short-sleeved T-shirt in half, is disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent No. 5-31276 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 5,257,591). A conveying device, such as conveyor belt, conveys the cloth continuously along a conveying surface of the conveying device. A holding device mounted on this conveyor belt grips the leading end of the continuously conveyed cloth on the conveying surface of the conveyor belt, lifts the gripped end of the cloth from the conveying surface and holds it above the conveying surface temporarily. When the leading end of the cloth is lifted and held by the holding device, only the rear end of the cloth is conveyed by the conveyor belt. When the rear end of the conveyed cloth reaches a specified position, gripping of the leading end of the cloth is released, and the leading end is overlaid on the rear end. As a result, the cloth is folded in half.
In the conventional apparatus, however, if cloths are mutually overlaid and mounted sequentially on the conveyor belt, the leading end of the cloth of the succeeding side may not be gripped and lifted, or if lifted, the position of the cloth may be largely deviated, and it may fail to fold as specified, and folding errors may occur.
To avoid such defective folding or folding error, the operator must observe the conveying surface of the conveyor belt to wait until the cloth mounted on the conveyor belt reaches a specific position, and put on a next cloth, and therefore when conveying multiple cloths continuously and folding the cloths successively, must spend time in mounting of cloths on the conveyor belt, and the working efficiency is poor on the whole.